The Supreme Court lifted a federal injunction blocking Trump border wall construction in the Big Bend Sector, but environmental groups' lawsuit continues.
Page B54From§Eachthe evening edition — 9 November 2026
Supreme Court lets border wall through Big Bend National Park; the suit to stop it remains pending
As it ran on the front
You will have read that the conservationists' lawsuit continues, and you will have taken some comfort in that. Do not. The suit is what remains standing; the ground is not. Walls, access roads and vehicle barriers proceed inside a national park, and the case about whether they may proceed will be heard ... at leisure.
Do note the order of it. The thirty-foot panels went up on the nineteenth of September, before any of this. A judge paused the work last month. On the twenty-first of October the Solicitor General called that injunction "baseless" and said the block disrupts the securing of a quarter of the southern border. A quarter.…
…(cont) On Monday the justices lifted it in a brief statement. Brief. An injunction pending suit holds a thing still so that a court may decide about it; lifted, there is less of the thing to decide about every week.
And what did the conservationists get for the month? A live case, and thirty-foot panels in a national park.
The watchman tastes salt now. At the pass, the watchman sleeps well.
“They tell you the lawsuit is still alive — sure, and the equipment is still running too, and only one of those moves dirt in Big Bend this week. The administration got the Court to lift the pause first and answer the question later, so the walls, the access roads and the vehicle barriers go into a national park that belongs to the public before anyone rules on whether they belong there at all. You win that case in two years, who puts the canyon back?”
“Look, the Court lifted an injunction, that is all that happened, nobody said one word about the park — did I say that? That doesn't sound like me. The Solicitor General called the block baseless, a quarter of the southern border was sitting there, and the environmental groups still have their lawsuit, so what is the complaint exactly. Nothing's been decided. It's just construction.”
The receipts
The administration had asked the court to permit construction of a border wall in southwestern Texas, including areas within a national park.
The construction will include physical walls, access roads and vehicle barriers, according to Trump administration plans.
The Supreme Court is allowing border barrier construction to continue in and around Big Bend National Park in Texas, in a win for the Trump administration. The justices on Monday halted a lower court’s decision last month to pause the construction while the underlying case against it plays out. In a brief statement outlining its...
· Conservationists Vow Court Fight as DHS Lifts Pause on Big Bend Border Construction from the morgue, 30 Sep 2026
· Trump administration asks Supreme Court to lift block on Big Bend border wall construction from the morgue, 21 Oct 2026
· Trump administration asks Supreme Court to allow Big Bend border wall construction from the morgue, 21 Oct 2026
· Trump administration begins construction on Texas's Big Bend border wall from the morgue, 19 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.